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Two months ago, Ladders predicted that the summer months might play a major role in reducing COVID-19 transmissions.
Although based on preliminary research published at the time, previously studied coronaviruses all yielded to sunlight.
The SARS virus that caused the epidemic of 2002 and the MERS virus that caused the outbreak of 2012 both ended up being acutely seasonal, with transmission rates peaking between January and May.
Even if we couldn’t say the same outcome would apply to SARS-CoV-2 with moral certainty, we did know that the mutated virus is the most stable at 4°C. At this temperature, its presence is even detectable after two weeks.
Seasonal intervention just gained more credibility with a new study published in the journal Photochemistry and Photobiology.
In it, the authors, Jose-Luis Sagripanti and David Lytle posit that the summer sun can eliminate SARS-CoV-2 in a little over 30 minutes. Read more >>